


The Disciple

by riventhorn



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how Lucius ended up at Castellum</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Disciple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [osprey_archer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, osprey_archer! I love Lucius, too, so it was great getting to explore his background a little more. I tried to include some of your favorite things, although I'm afraid no hound metaphors made the cut. ;)
> 
> Thank you to sineala for being an awesome beta and to the mods for running the fest.
> 
> Although I did not tag for major character death, the fate Lucius meets in canon is implied
> 
> Disclaimer: no copyright infringement intended; no profit is being made from this

_Quid faciat laetas segetes, quo sidere terram vertere,  
Maecenas, ulmisque adiungere vitis conveniat…_

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star  
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod  
Or marry elm with vine… 

A colony of bees, Lucius thought. They would make such a sweetness of honeycomb, golden as the amber necklace his mother used to wear. He must have bees. And a little pond by the orchard to keep stocked with fish. 

The night before, he had decided upon Aquitania as a likely place to settle, but now changed his mind to Belgica that he might chance to catch the scent of heather on a wind from the sea and be minded of the mists that often cloaked the hills about Castellum.

*

He could not have imagined the cold winters along the frontier nor the fierce cries of the Votadini when he had been a boy, scrambling about the choked, narrow alleyways of Rome. No, as a child he had his heart set on becoming a _protector_ in the _Scholae_ , the personal guard of the emperor himself. His mother spoke so often of the emperor’s greatness, of Constantine’s holiness, of his role in lifting the persecution that had plagued the disciples of God for so long. To protect such a man—to stand in the Basilica Salvatoris under his eyes and God’s—it had been a dream that brightened the hours spent in that cramped apartment, sweating in the summer heat, trying to avoid his father’s fist and holding his little sister close under the blankets, helpless, while the brute beat their mother for spilling the sour wine. 

His sister was dead of a fever, his father of a cutpurse’s blade by the time he admitted to himself that the _Scholae_ had no place for the son of a common laborer. And so he joined the Legions and toiled in the ranks and tried to forget about the soaring archways and brilliant frescos of the basilica and the clear voices of the priests, chanting their hymns to God.

*  
 _Dominus pars hereditatis mea et calicis mei:_  
 _tu es qui detines sortem meam._  
 _Funes ceciderunt mihi in praeclaris;_  
 _insuper et hereditas mea speciosa est mihi._  
 _Benedicam Dominum, qui tribuit mihi intellectum_

You, Lord, are my inheritance and my cup.  
You control my destiny,  
the lot marked out for me is of the best,  
my inheritance is all I could ask for.  
I will bless the Lord who gave me understanding

In the Legions, he prayed to Sanctus Georgius and wore his likeness on a medallion around his neck. Sanctus Georgius had been a legionary, too, under Diocletian. And though Lucius no longer had to fear death for his faith, he liked to think that Sanctus Georgius had faced the same burdens of blistered feet and arrogant centurions. 

He always tried to reply quietly to his commanders, in a dignified yet humble tone, as he imagined Sanctus Georgius had done. 

One of his mother’s aunts claimed to have been witness to Sanctus Georgius’s execution. 

“She only wants to have a story to tell to visitors,” his mother had said. “She is lonely, you know, since her husband died.”

Lucius had ventured that lying was a sin.

“The Lord understands what it is to be alone,” his mother had replied, “and He would not begrudge her this comfort.” 

*

_Depresso incipiat iam tum mihi taurus aratro  
ingemere et sulco attritus splendescere vomer._

Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,  
And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.

In a muddy, timbered fort in Germania, he met Hilarion. 

Lucius was an _optio_ now, and his _gladius_ had bit deep into the living flesh of a tribesman and left him gasping out his last in a patch of shade under a pine tree. Lucius had stumbled back into the sun and felt the world go still around him for a moment before he cleaned his blade on the grass and returned to shouting orders. 

Hilarion was an _optio_ , too, although Lucius could never fathom how he had managed the promotion, given that he showed up late for duty two days out of three and seemed to spend most of his time with a whore who lived in the _vicus_ outside the fort. 

“It is not as though we are in danger of being overrun by barbarians,” Hilarion would say, lounging against the wall and fiddling with his knife. “And if we were overrun, inside this rickety excuse for a defensive position is the last place I should want to be. Now tell me again about this god of yours and why I should worship him.”

And Lucius would tell him of the teachings of the Lord, even though he knew that Hilarion was laughing at him behind his too-serious mouth and wide-eyed gaze. 

He liked it best when they sat together companionably, working on re-strapping a sandal or idly tossing some dice. 

“I thought that god of yours did not approve of cheating,” Hilarion grumbled each time Lucius beat his toss. 

They shared quarters, and Hilarion would lie on his cot, propped up on one elbow, watching as Lucius carefully unrolled his copy of the _Georgics_. He had bought the scroll off a merchant and spent the ensuing weeks feeling guilty that he had not spent the coin on a religious text instead. 

“You have never even touched a plow,” Hilarion said with some contempt. 

“We will not be in the Legions all our lives,” Lucius replied. “Besides, my grandfather on my mother’s side farmed the soils of Clusium, and some small piece of that must be in my blood.”

“I’m shocked at you, Lucius. I always thought you would be a good little Roman and get yourself killed so that you need not tax the empire’s meager resources upon your retirement.” Hilarion flopped onto his back. “Personally, I intend to meet a heroic end in battle and spare the empire the money.” He peered over at Lucius. “You should save my dice cup so that when I am canonized, and pilgrims want to see my relics, you will be able to reap a tidy profit.”

“That is not quite how it works,” Lucius said, but he could not help laughing, and Hilarion grinned back. 

Hilarion was with him when he received the news about his mother. For once, Hilarion did not speak but put his arm around Lucius’s shoulders for a moment and then left him to be alone. 

*

In the spring, their commander was promoted to an auxiliary unit in Aegyptus, and a man named Drusus took his place. If Drusus had been cruel or thoughtless, perhaps there would have been no trouble, strange as it might sound. But Drusus was dull-witted and incompetent, and Hilarion could never hide his scorn for stupidity. 

“You must not make such remarks,” Lucius chided him one evening after a supper among the officers when Hilarion had cast none-too-subtle aspersions on Drusus’s competence. 

“Be at ease,” Hilarion replied, draping his arms over the back of a chair. “Our glorious Commander was too intent on picking gristle from his teeth to notice.” 

But one day, Drusus did notice. Lucius was out on a patrol and when he returned, he found Hilarion confined to a cell and facing a flogging. 

“Sir,” he said quietly to Drusus after being granted a moment of the Commander’s time. “Sir, you must excuse Hilarion. It is only that he has a poor sense of humor. He meant no harm and—”

Drusus did not let him finish, and the next day, Lucius stood in the yard and watched as Hilarion was tied to the whipping post. 

After it was done, the surgeon laid Hilarion on a cot and began to roughly wash the welts and cuts. Hilarion had cried out enough during the whipping to tear his throat raw, and now he groaned softly.

“I will do it,” Lucius said, and he took the cloth from the surgeon and began to sponge Hilarion’s back.

“It appears—” Hilarion coughed, trying to gather his breath. “It appears you were right, after all. The Commander has managed to learn to read the graffiti in the latrines.”

“Hush,” Lucius admonished, giving him some weak wine to drink and a little poppy juice the surgeon had left. “You need to lie still now.”

“Perhaps you might read some of your Virgil,” Hilarion said after a while, breathing shallowly to try to ease the pain. “It is so— _ah_ —so boring that I shall have no trouble falling asleep.”

Lucius chuckled and went to fetch his _Georgics_.

“Read the part about the bees,” Hilarion requested when he returned. 

“And here I thought you paid me no attention.”

“After the hundredth hearing, once cannot help but remember something.”

Lucius found his hand and squeezed it. He began to read, slowly, lingering over the words:

_First find your bees a settled sure abode,_  
 _Where neither winds can enter (winds blow back_  
 _The foragers with food returning home)_  
 _Nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers,_  
 _Nor heifer wandering wide upon the plain_  
 _Dash off the dew, and bruise the springing blades._  
 _Let the gay lizard too keep far aloof_  
 _His scale-clad body from their honied stalls,_  
 _And the bee-eater, and what birds beside,_  
 _And Procne smirched with blood upon the breast_  
 _From her own murderous hands. For these roam wide_  
 _Wasting all substance, or the bees themselves_  
 _Strike flying, and in their beaks bear home, to glut_  
 _Those savage nestlings with the dainty prey._  
 _But let clear springs and moss-green pools be near,_  
 _And through the grass a streamlet hurrying run,_  
 _Some palm-tree o'er the porch extend its shade,_  
 _Or huge-grown oleaster, that in Spring,_  
 _Their own sweet Spring-tide, when the new-made chiefs_  
 _Lead forth the young swarms, and, escaped their comb,_  
 _The colony comes forth to sport and play._

“Ah, but for the life of a bee,” Hilarion murmured drowsily, the poppy juice taking effect at last. 

“You should not like the hard work,” Lucius reminded him.

“A fair…point,” Hilarion sighed and drifted into sleep. 

Lucius sat near him through the night and kept a tallow candle lit, making sure that Hilarion did not toss and turn and aggravate his wounds. He kept reading to pass the time, pausing now and then to imagine the farm that he would buy when he finished his service. Perhaps he would plant a small vineyard on a sunny slope. There would be enough to make a few barrels of wine, and in the evenings he would enjoy a cup. Perhaps a friend would join him, and they would drink the wine and discuss the day and watch the sun-shadows lengthen into night.

*

Unsurprisingly, a flogging did not turn Hilarion properly contrite, and by the end of a fortnight, he was being transferred from their unit for insubordination and dereliction of duty. 

The first snow of winter fell on the morning Hilarion left. Lucius watched him pack his few belongings and did not ask about the chipped piece of clay, shaped in the form of a dog, that Hilarion wrapped carefully in wool before stowing in his satchel. 

“Any word yet on where you shall be sent?”

“No, I shall receive my orders once I arrive at Aquae Mattiacae,” Hilarion replied. “I expect it will be to some out-of-the-way corner of the empire, where I shall be conveniently forgotten.” He started to lean against the wall, forgetting the tender scars on his back, and then flinched away and held himself stiffly. “But whores and wine can always be procured around a fort, and so I suppose it will be no more wretched than it is here.”

“You will write and tell me how it is once you are settled.”

He did not expect it, of course, and Hilarion did not write. 

*

Sitting by himself now in the doorway of their barracks, wrapped in his cloak to ward off the cold, he thought back to a day the summer before when he and Hilarion had been standing together on the wall. 

“It will take more than two hands to work a farm,” he had ventured quietly, and Hilarion turned a suddenly sharp gaze on him.

“If you should like it—you would be welcome to join me,” he had continued, tongue awkward on the words. “I had thought of Aquitania, but if there was somewhere else that you preferred…”

Hilarion had regarded him silently a moment longer, and then he had laughed, slinging an arm around Lucius’s shoulders.

“I know you do not mean it,” he had said. “For I would only drink your wine and spend my days in the hay with each likely girl who walked by.” 

Lucius had let it go, but now he regretted that he had not asked again.

*

_Esto mihi in rupem praesidii et in domum munitam,_  
 _ut salvum me facias,_  
 _quoniam fortitudo mea_  
 _et refugium meum es tu._

Be my rock, Lord, be my refuge,  
a stronghold where I can be safe.  
For you are my strength  
and you are my refuge.

When he had been a boy, listening to the sermons of the priests, Lucius had often wondered if he would have had the strength to follow God’s Word had he been born during the years of persecution. Could he have stayed strong in his faith, as Sanctus Georgius had done, even when faced with death? 

As he grew older, he began to realize that it was not death that tried men’s souls but the ever-growing weight of life—the strife, the weariness, the anger, the disappointment—so many moments that sent one to the night’s rest conflicted or sorrowful, pondering a decision made or a choice yet to come. 

On the evening that he stumbled upon the camp prefect accepting a pouch of money from a hooded man—and when later that night, two suspected thieves somehow managed to escape from the cells, elude the guards, and get out the Praetorian Gate undetected—he knew that he faced his own trial. He must decide whether to bring the matter to the Commander or to remain silent. 

He was due for a promotion soon. A chance to escape the dull slog of fatigues and patrols. A slight increase in pay, that he might put more aside for the promised farm that he spent the long, cold winters envisioning in his mind. 

Or he could choose justice and the very real possibility that he would be called a liar and disciplined and demoted. 

He spent the night in prayer before the small altar he kept in his quarters. With the dark around him and only a candle flame and the cold floor to steady him, he felt exposed and isolated. He knew that God always had the power to judge men’s souls, but he had never known what it would feel like until that moment. 

“Hear me, O Lord,” he whispered, “for my spirit is weakening. Tell me the way I should follow, for I lift up my soul towards you.”

In the morning, he climbed stiffly to his feet, cursing the pains in his knees. He stood for a moment in a splash of sunshine, letting his eyes fall closed. Then he straightened, pinned his cloak in place, and went to speak to the Commander. 

The decision had felt _right_. It had felt like something his mother would have been proud to know her son had done. And so, when the Commander yelled at him and called for the guards, he felt a stab of betrayal, deep in his heart. 

The consequences were worse than he had thought—like Hilarion, he was to be transferred to the frontier where he could cause no further trouble. For him, it would be Britannia, a place even more primitive and harsh than this rough-timbered fort where he had toiled the past years. 

To his shame, as the boat pulled away from the shore, and the spray dampened his cloak, he felt nothing but bitter regret that he had chosen as he had.

_Why have you put me on this path, Lord?_ he asked silently, watching the white-tipped swells dash alongside the boat. _You watched my struggle and know that I almost faltered. Yet in acting as You would have your disciples act, I feel not peace but anger. And I wonder if You listen to my prayers. I doubt, and my mind is troubled._

He bent his head. _Sanctus Georgius, stand with me now, as you have all these years. Do not let me turn into darkness. Show me that the Lord still guides me and shelters me._

*

When he laid eyes upon Castellum, he thought it seemed like the very pit of Hell. A savage tribesman, painted and long-haired, stood by the gate, and two of the men slunk by with wolf pelts on their backs. 

But then he heard a familiar voice say,

“Just when I thought I was safe from hearing about Virgil, farming, and the labors of the soil.”

And then Hilarion was gripping him in an embrace, and he knew that he was still on the true path. 

*

He would sow barley, Lucius thought, leaning against the wall and looking down at the dusty road that led to the ford. A woman walked along it, bringing a basket of fresh eggs to sell, and he could hear her humming a soft song. 

Barley, and a herd of goats, so that he might have cheese to go with his honey. And not one chair alone, but two, settled before the hearth.

*

_As for man his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth.  
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more._

**Author's Note:**

> The final quote is Psalm 103.15
> 
> Lucius’s line: “Hear me, O Lord, for my spirit is weakening. Tell me the way I should follow, for I lift up my soul towards you,” is from Psalm 142. 
> 
> The other prayers are from the Liturgy of the Hours. I am uncertain whether or not the psalms and these texts had been written by the early fourth century, so it may be completely anachronistic. Along those lines, I know practically nothing about early Christianity except what I learned off random websites doing research for this fic, so my apologies if I am totally off base on some things.
> 
> The snippets from the _Georgics_ are also from a website and, hopefully, correct. Ditto the Latin originals of the _Georgics_ and prayers—I don’t read Latin, so they may or may not be completely correct. But hopefully they give the right flavor.


End file.
